The University of Bristol is a public university of the United Kingdom located in the city of Bristol. It was founded in 1876 under the name of University College of Bristol and officially recognized in 1909. The university is organized into six faculties composed of multiple schools and departments that teach more than 200 undergraduate courses. It is located in the Clifton area next to three of its student residence buildings. The other six residences are located in the suburb of Stoke Bishop. The University of Bristol has a total of revenues that in 2014 amounted to 530.9 million pounds sterling, of which 148.4 million corresponded to research contracts.
The University of Bristol is ranked number 11 in the United Kingdom in research according to the evaluation done in 2014 by the Research Excellence Framework, ranked number 37 in the world by the QS World University Rankings for 2015- 16 and the THE and ARWU rankings place it among the ten best in the United Kingdom. It is a highly selective institution of its students, in the Faculty of Sciences there is an average of 6.4 applicants for each quota in the undergraduate courses while in the Faculty of Medicine the number rises to 13.1 postulants for each quota. Among the current academics of the institution are 21 members of the Academy of Medical Sciences, 13 members of the British Academy, 13 members of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 44 members of the Royal Society.
In addition the university is associated with twelve winners of the Nobel Prize throughout his history as Paul Dirac, Sir William Ramsay, Cecil Frank Powell, Sir Winston Churchill, Dorothy Hodgkin, Hans Albrecht Bethe, Max Delbrück, Gerhard Herzberg, Sir Nevill Francis Mott, Harold Pinter, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio and Angus Deaton. The University of Bristol is a member of the Russell Group composed of British universities dedicated to intensive research, of the European association Coimbra which the university's former vice chancellor, Eric Thomas headed from 2005 to 2007. Additionally, the institution is part of the Erasmus program, sending more than 500 students a year of exchange to partner universities in the rest of Europe.